The next day the family were once more alone, and the young people
were obliged to find out games which did not require such a
considerable number of players. Blindman’s Buff was the first that was
chosen by this joyous little group. Adriana, as the youngest, had her
eyes bound, and ran after her companions. Madame D’Hernilly took upon
herself to call out, in order to warn the one who was blinded, when
she approached too near a tree, or any other object that might
endanger her safety. Adriana ran about during some time without
catching any body; at last Ernestina suffered herself to be caught,
out of compassion no doubt, and she pursued her young friends in her
turn. This play lasted the greatest part of the day, but a storm
coming on towards evening forced them to seek a shelter, and they
retired to the drawing-room. As they complained of being obliged to
leave off their game, Adela advised them to continue it in the hall,
which was very spacious.
Madame D’Hernilly disapproved of this proposal, because she thought
the game would endanger the furniture; but being always desirous to
contribute to the amusement of the children, she told them that they
might play at _Blindman’s Buff sitting_. This game is not attended
with any risk to the furniture, and may be played without
inconvenience even in a small room; it is besides more amusing perhaps
than the other, particularly if it is played by candle-light.
The young people applauded Madame D’Hernilly’s idea; but they agreed
at the same time that they would not begin to play till after dinner.
They had scarcely dined when visitors arrived, whose company was
almost as tiresome to the mistress of the house, as to the children.
Our young readers will easily conceive with what impatience the latter
waited for the moment when the departure of the guests, would leave
them at liberty to begin their sport. At last it arrived, the visitors
retired, and our gay young troop immediately formed themselves into a
circle in the middle of the saloon. As Ernestina was to be blinded,
they covered her eyes with a muslin handkerchief; every one then
changed their place, and she was conducted into the middle of the
group, and had the liberty of seating herself upon the knee of
whatever person she pleased; but she was obliged, without putting her
hands upon the person whom she touched, to guess who it was.
As the young folks were all differently dressed, the touch of their
clothes would furnish an easy means of discovering them, but they did
every thing in their power to prevent the one who was blinded from
profiting by this circumstance: Adriana, who had a plain cambric
muslin gown on, drew upon her knees the skirt of her next neighbour’s
Merino pelisse. Ernestina deceived by the touch, exclaimed that it was
Madame D’Hernilly or Adela; they called out, triumphantly, “Wrong!
wrong!” and poor Ernestina had to begin her round again.
This game amused them during the whole evening, and they liked it so
much, that in some days afterwards they began to play at it again,
with as much eagerness as the first time; but they varied the manner
of playing at it, and by so doing, heightened the amusement it
afforded them. This new method, which we must call playing blindman’s
buff in shadow, was as follows:――
One of the young ladies stood facing the wall, and she was enjoined
not to look behind her: an Austral lamp was placed upon a table at the
bottom of the saloon, and there was no other light in the room. All
the party then passed between the lamp and the person who stood with
her face to the wall, so that their shadows fell upon the wall; the
lady who stood with her face to it, was obliged to guess as each
shadow passed whose it was.
Madame D’Hernilly’s daughters, and their young companions, exerted all
their ingenuity to disguise their figures, that they might avoid being
caught. At first they passed pretty quickly in succession, because
they were not yet well acquainted with the game; but at the fifth or
sixth game, when Madame D’Hernilly occupied the post facing the wall,
they made use of all the little artifices they could think of to lead
her into error. Ernestina, Adela, and Adriana, vied with each other in
endeavours to disguise their shadows most effectually. Their postures
were so whimsical, that Madame D’Hernilly could not succeed in
discovering any one.
To increase the difficulties, they resolved to put a cheat upon her,
and slily brought a young servant girl to take a part in the game
without her knowledge. This girl presented herself at first with a
gardener’s hat on; and presently afterwards, she put on the pouch and
belt of the game-keeper, and clapped a villager’s cap upon her head.
After that she crawled along upon her hands and feet with a
postilion’s jack-boot upon her arms. Madame D’Hernilly was obliged to
say that she “_threw her tongue to the dogs_.” This phrase is used to
signify that you give up; and uncouth as it sounds in our language,
Madame de Sevigné has condescended to employ it in one of her most
sprightly letters[3].
They deliberated upon the penance which they should inflict upon
Madame D’Hernilly; and they agreed that she should be obliged to
embrace those of the company whom she loved best, and that she must do
it without making the others jealous. She tenderly embraced her
daughters and their young friends; and though her preference for her
daughters was too natural to be doubted, they did not perceive that
there was any difference in her manner of caressing them, and their
companions. She therefore fulfilled the express condition of the
penance, which was in fact a pleasure, rather than a penance to her.
They then played one more game; Ernestina soon found herself in the
same situation as Madame D’Hernilly, and she was consequently obliged
to submit to a penance. They gave her a fable to read, of which the
following lines form the concluding moral:
Sometimes smooth and sometimes rough,
Is the game of Blindman’s Buff.
Between the blind and those who see,
It oft produces treachery.
’Twere better then, amid the strife
That mingles in the scenes of life,
As the best guard ’gainst those who flout you,
To keep an open eye, and look about you.
These childish amusements were interrupted for some time by the
arrival of a new present from Victor, the kind brother of the Misses
D’Hernilly: it consisted of some new music. Their father had added
several instructive books to Victor’s gift; and the young ladies were
delighted with both. Their occupations now became as serious as
possible; they were engaged the whole day at the harp, the piano, and
the _Solfeggio_; they hardly allowed themselves even a short interval
to walk in the garden, gather flowers, or admire the beauty of the
fruits which were approaching to maturity.
If by chance bad weather obliged the company to confine themselves to
the drawing-room, the young people read extracts from voyages and
travels, written in such a manner as to suit their capacity, divested
of those scientific details which are uninteresting to people of the
world, and cleared at the same time from all that could be detrimental
to the youthful and delicate mind. These extracts united all that is
most pleasing in history and romance, and they were free from the
dryness of the one, and from all that is dangerous in the other.
One evening Madame D’Hernilly took her work-basket into the park,
where she seated herself at the foot of a majestic oak, surrounded by
beautiful plane trees, and began to amuse herself with her work. The
young visitors, of whom we have spoken, had left the castle for some
days, on account of a slight indisposition of their mamma, but they
came to pass this evening with Adela and Ernestina. The young people
amused themselves with roving about the park; the evening was
delightfully serene, the last rays of the setting sun were gradually
disappearing before the brilliant disk of the full moon, which arose
at the opposite extremity of the horizon in mild and cloudless
majesty. The lovely serenity of the scene invited the young friends to
the pursuit of rural pleasures, but the heat of the day was not
sufficiently abated, to enable them to run about and give themselves
up without restraint to active exercise. Madame D’Hernilly found that
it was too dark to pursue her embroidery any longer, when the young
people came and grouped themselves about her. Adela proposed to return
to the house and practise some music. “We should do much better,”
cried Adriana, “to stay here.” “But what should we play at then?”
cried one of the others. “Oh,” replied Adriana, “at what you will, no
matter, provided it is play.” “Let us dance hands round,” said
Ernestina. “No,” said Adela, “it is too hot.” “Well then, let us play
at blindman’s buff.” “Oh,” cried Adriana, “we have played at that so
much; besides, I am always afraid you will cheat me, you know how you
caught me the last time.”
Adriana alluded to a little trick which her companions had put upon
her. Three weeks before, they played one day at blindman’s buff upon a
very extensive lawn, which was surrounded on all sides by gravel
walks, where there was no breakneck place to fear. It was expressly
settled that they should not go beyond the lawn, and that whoever
passed its limits, should be looked upon as caught, and submit to be
blinded accordingly.
It was Adriana who was blinded, and on the faith of their agreement,
she went quietly groping about for almost a quarter of an hour;
meantime, the other rogues all passed the lawn, and mischievously left
her to seek them in vain. When she found out the trick she was almost
angry, and even Madame D’Hernilly reproached the others gravely for
having broken their express agreement.
Ernestina proposed that they should play at a game, the movements of
which do not require much activity; it is blindman’s buff with the
wand. “What is that?” cried Valeria. “Oh,” said the frolicksome
Ernestina, “I will soon shew you.”
They hastened to gather from the banks of a little rivulet which ran
through a garden laid out in the English taste, a pliant branch of a
weeping willow; they stripped it of all its leaves, and left it about
a foot and a half long. They were proceeding to draw lots to ascertain
in the usual way who should be blinded; when Ernestina, who was very
good-natured, offered of her own accord to take the disagreeable part
of the blind one: the others accordingly put a bandage over her eyes,
and made sure that she could not see, when they gave her the wand to
hold. Each of the others then took hold by turns of the opposite end
of the wand, they put it to their lips and whispered a few words,
endeavouring at the same time to disguise their voices. Ernestina who
had proposed the game, and who was supposed to be well acquainted with
it, became the victim of her good-nature, for she remained a long time
unable to guess at any of the whisperers; she was lucky enough,
however, to succeed at last, and each of the others were obliged to
submit to be blinded in their turn.
Adriana shewed a good deal of cleverness at this game, and managed for
a long time to avoid being caught; at last, the one who was blinded
contrived by a little sly trick to make her betray herself. She threw
her off her guard, and in her surprise, she spoke without disguising
her voice; she was consequently immediately recognised, and
triumphantly seized. It was Ernestina who played this trick, which
Adriana resolved should not pass unrevenged, and accordingly she made
use of every effort to catch Ernestina, who being the cleverest of the
party contrived for a long time to escape. Adriana might easily have
seized upon Adela, or Valeria, but it was Ernestina only that she
wished to catch, and at last she succeeded.
[Illustration: Girls playing blindman's buff]
When Ernestina’s eyes were bandaged, Adriana went to Madame
D’Hernilly, who had till then remained seated at some distance without
taking any share in the game, but at the desire of Adriana, she now
drew near and held the wand. While she thus stood facing Ernestina,
she remained silent, and the adroit Adriana, who was close to her,
muttered a few words, interrupted every now and then by a titter. As
Ernestina knew nothing of Madame D’Hernilly’s holding the wand, she
guessed repeatedly, but always in vain. At last, wearied out with her
ill luck, she declared she gave it up, and Adriana to complete her
little revenge, acknowledged the stratagem she had practised, saying,
“So you see, Ernestina, the plotter is caught in his own trap.” This
joke terminated their sport at blindman’s buff, but as it was yet too
early for them to retire to their apartments, they determined to
finish the evening with another game; and they made choice of
Hot-cockles. Madame D’Hernilly, who wished to put an end to their
little tricks of deceiving and cheating one another, practices which
we hope our young readers will condemn as being highly improper,
determined to play herself the part of the _confessor_; each of the
young people came in succession, and placing her hand upon Madame
D’Hernilly’s lap, spread her right hand upon her back, and remained in
this position which is called, being the _penitent_, till she could
guess who struck her.
The rules of this game are extremely simple, but there is one
precaution necessary in playing it, that of not striking too
violently. Excesses of this sort were not much to be apprehended where
the players were all young ladies; however, we must confess, that some
of them felt inclined to give heavy blows; Madame D’Hernilly, who saw
this, took great care to rein in their impetuosity. She obliged them
also to the strict observance of the rules, one of which was, that two
persons should never strike at the same time. Whenever this happened,
the person who gave the last blow, ought to take the place of
penitent; and Madame D’Hernilly took care always to inflict the
penalty with inflexible severity.
While they were at play, the nursery-maid came to tell them that
supper was ready. Ernestina wanted her to hide behind a bush for a
little while, and then to strike Adriana, who, of course, would be a
long time before she could guess who gave the blow. Madame D’Hernilly,
who regretted having in a former instance lent herself to a deception,
even though it was an innocent one, would not permit this little
deceit to be practised. She broke up the game, and the children found,
in their light and simple supper, a refreshment after the fatigues of
play. They then retired to bed, where exercise, combined with their
temperate repast, ensured them good repose.
Place this among the golden rules,
Which you may learn in moral schools;
When you receive a secret blow
Be sure that you can name the foe;
Nor let Suspicion’s vain pretence,
Risque your revenge on Innocence.
There is also another description of hot-cockles, called “Brother,
they strike me.” There are two penitents, the one who finds himself
touched with the corner of a pocket-handkerchief, calls out to the
other, “Brother, they strike me.” The other replies, “Who strikes
you?” and the first one must guess. But one of the players is a false
brother; sometimes he himself strikes, and sometimes his companion; he
takes care not to name himself. The game does not finish till the
person upon whom the trick is played perceives the cheat; but if his
comrades are clever, the illusion may last a good while. The false
brother complains that they strike him too violently, and is the first
to call out and to complain of the trick. At the expiration of a
certain time he gives up to another, who purposely allows himself to
be caught; and this serves to prolong the joke and the game. At last
they own to their deceived comrade, the trick they have been playing
him, and they comfort him by telling him, that in future he may catch
others in the same manner.
[3] The letter in which Madame de Sevigné speaks of the
marriage of De Lauzun with Mademoiselle D’Orléans.